THE SINGER, NOT THE SONG

The Burden of Pre-Clinical Learning

Starting from as early as the commencement of the medical course, it had occurred to many of us that the numerous topics in the long and tedious pre-clinical curriculum were utterly unnecessary, or at best, of little significance for the proper diagnosis and treatment of the diseases we would be called upon to attend as doctors, if and when we qualified.

What comes easily to mind is the perplexing formula for alpha-tocopherol that we were compelled to learn in Biochemistry, in addition to several other equally useless topics. Equally ridiculous was the requirement in Bacteriology to remember the constituents of the Lowenstein-Gentian medium. In Forensic Medicine, we were expected to memorize McNaughton’s Rules pertaining to liability in cases of murder. Further, in Anatomy, we had to know not just the names of all the muscles, but also their origins, insertions, actions, and nerve supply. Thinking back these several decades, we should have been bold enough to tell the professors, “Go fly a kite, we’re not learning these silly topics.”

A Different Mindset

The readers must be reminded, however, that we’re talking about the time the Batch of Three Hundred were in College doing the 2nd MB. That was well over half a century ago. Our mindset was completely different from that of the modern student. Sociologists might explain this as an example of ‘Norm Change.’ Norm, they say, is a statistically determined standard of behaviour, such as rules of politeness or moral judgments, that keeps changing over time. What present-day students might complain about and strike for, we accepted meekly and suffered stoically. Much like the British cavalry in Tennyson's poem The Charge of the Light Brigade, we carried out our orders regardless of the inevitable outcome, reasoning, “Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die.”

The Case Against Parasitology

These, however, were merely minor irritants in otherwise tolerable subjects. But if one asked any of the intelligentsia in the Three Hundred Batch whether there was any discipline that was completely dispensable, a waste of time to burn the midnight oil on, and therefore unnecessary for medical students, the answer, by a figure well above what was statistically significant, would have been Parasitology.

Among the details we were required to know were the life cycles and distinguishing features of a variety of microscopic life forms, insects, and, believe it or not, snakes. A student firing on just two mental cylinders might ask, “How would knowing the duration of each stage of, say, Enterobius vermicularis, or Trichuris trichura, help in any way other than needlessly taxing the neurons?” Or he might question the wisdom of learning about creatures that posed no threat in our salubrious isle. Take, for example, Schistosoma mansoni, the possessor of the famed gynaecophoric canal, which we were expected to study, even though the species was not resident in Ceylon!

One could only view such questions as fodder for philosophers, while our life in medical college went on. There was, however, a silver lining.

The ‘Singer’ Who Made a Difference

The 1961 movie The Singer, Not the Song, starring John Mills and, if memory serves, Dirk Bogarde, illustrated that it was the ‘singer, ’the priest in the story, that mattered more than the ‘song,’ the religion he preached. There is a great parallel here. The subject of Parasitology, disparaged by many of the Three Hundred Batch as educational refuse, was taught by the amiable Professor Sivalingam. Standing at five-foot nothing, his slim figure clad in a figure-hugging white suit, his lectures were pure entertainment. In his rasping voice, he described each tiny creature in exquisite detail, as a compere at a gala fashion show might describe the frills and décolletage of a Versace evening gown on a celebrity actress. Habitually disentangling himself from the long microphone cord and flitting across the stage like a salmon in a highland stream, he made the otherwise unexciting subject captivating.

The Rebel in the Batch

In every community, while the majority suffers in silence, there emerge ones, variously described as saviours, liberators, or knights in shining armor, who, unable to endure any longer, defy the administration to fight and question. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, commonly known as Che Guevara, El Che, or simply Che, were such ones.

The narrator apologizes to the readers for his inability to remember the name of Che’s equivalent in our batch. But this student stood up at the conclusion of one of Professor Sivalingam’s lectures to question why medical students had to learn about snakes, including their scientific names and distinguishing features. Professor Sivalingam drew himself up to his maximum height, looked the rebel straight in the eye, and replied:

“Aisay, if a mother brings a creature saying the child passed it in his stools, unless you know these features, how are you going to find out whether it’s a snake or a worm the child had passed, men?”

The roar of approval from the audience was loud and long.

Having said it, he continued to gaze at the rebel, glorified in the perfection of the moment. Fair point. And for our Che, as Khaled Hosseini once wrote, “It was better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.”

“Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.” (Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger)

Professor Sivalingam was one such beautiful person.